Russia and India are now one another’s second most important partners on the energy front: 18% of Russia’s oil exports are purchased by India, which makes Russia India’s second largest oil supplier behind Iraq.
One of the pillars of the Indian-American Strategic Partnership is energy, which has become very important in their bilateral relations in recent years. It’s a mutually beneficial form of cooperation that isn’t aimed against any third country but could nevertheless be manipulated as recent events show with respect to the US pressuring the EU to “decouple” itself from Russia. Washington also wants Delhi to do the same but its multipolar conservative-sovereigntist (MCS) leadership refuses to submit to any form of foreign pressure, especially that which demands unilateral concessions on issues of national interest.
Instead, India decisively strengthened its strategic partnership with Russia in order to preemptively avert Moscow’s potentially disproportionate dependence on China as a response to the US-led West’s unprecedented sanctions against it. This South Asian civilization-state is now playing an irreplaceable balancing role in the New Cold War between the Golden Billion and the Global South, the first of which it continues cooperating with in order to manage China’s rise while the second serves its interests with respect to reforming the international system into a more equal, just, and stable multipolar one.
On the energy front, Russia and India are now one another’s second most important partners: 18% of Russia’s oil exports are purchased by India, which makes Russia India’s second largest oil supplier behind Iraq. This newfound practice of energy diplomacy between them helps Delhi balance Washington by preventing any potentially disproportionate dependence on American imports like that declining unipolar hegemon seems to have wanted to happen with time throughout the course of their strategic partnership. Had that occurred, then the US could have weaponized its exports against India.
Instead, India continues balancing all of its international portfolios – whether energy, trade, military, tech, or whatever else – in order to preemptively avert any potentially disproportionate dependence on any single partner. Ideally, India tries to specifically balance between the Golden Billion and the Global South in all of these spheres whenever possible though sometimes it’s unable to. Nevertheless, observers should acknowledge this complex but impressively practiced balancing act and especially its energy dimension since it’s emblematic of India’s grand strategy in the global systemic transition.